Marc Andreessen (born July 9, 1971) is an
American entrepreneur, investor, startup coach, blogger, and a
multi-millionaire software engineer best known as co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and
founder of Netscape Communications Corporation.[1]
He was the chair of Opsware,
a software company he founded originally as
Loudcloud, when it was acquired by Hewlett-Packard. He is also a
co-founder of Ning, a company which provides a
platform for social-networking websites. As of June 30, 2008, he is
said to be joining the Board of Directors of Facebook. On September
30, 2008, it was announced that he had joined the Board of
Directors of eBay, and September 17, 2009 it was announced he had
been named to the board of HP.[2]
Andreessen is a frequent keynote speaker and guest at Silicon
Valley conferences.

Netscape

After his graduation from the university in 1993, Andreessen
moved to California to
work at Enterprise Integration Technologies. Andreessen then met
with Jim
Clark, the recently-departed founder of Silicon
Graphics. Clark believed that the Mosaic browser had great
commercial possibilities and suggested starting an Internet
software company. Soon Mosaic Communications Corporation was in
business in Mountain View, California, with Andreessen as cofounder and
vice president of technology. The University of Illinois was
unhappy with the company's use of the Mosaic name, so Mosaic
Communications changed its name to Netscape Communications, and its
flagship web browser was the Netscape Navigator.

In the year between the formation of the company and its IPO,
Andreessen engaged in extensive public outreach on behalf of his
vision of the web browser's potential, something he had in fact
done continuously since making the decision to distribute Mosaic
for free via the Internet.

One of these events, hosted by Internet commercialization
pioneer Ken
McCarthy, was captured on video[4]
and provides a unique look at the state of the web between the time
Andreessen and his colleagues launched Mosaic and the time when web
browsers and servers became mainstream commercial products. At the
time of the recording, Andreessen was 23 years old.

Netscape's IPO in 1995 propelled
Andreessen into the public's imagination. Featured on the cover of
Time[5][6] and
other publications,[7]
Andreessen became the poster-boy wunderkind of the Internet bubble generation: young,
twenty-something, high-tech, ambitious, and worth millions (or
billions) of dollars practically overnight.

Netscape's success attracted the attention of Microsoft, which recognized
the web's potential and wanted to put itself at the forefront of
the rising Internet revolution. Microsoft licensed the Mosaic
source code from Spyglass, Inc., an offshoot of the
University of Illinois, and turned it into Internet
Explorer. The resulting battle between the two companies became
known as the Browser
Wars.

Loudcloud

However, he would soon leave to form Loudcloud, a
services-based Web hosting company that made an IPO in
2001. Loudcloud sold its hosting business to EDS and changed its name to Opsware in 2003, where
Andreessen served as chairman. Opsware was purchased by
Hewlett-Packard in September 2007 for approximately $1.6
billion.

Current
ventures

Andreessen is an investor in social news website Digg and several other early-stage technology
startups, like Plazes, Netvibes and Twitter. His latest project is Ning, which
launched in October 2004.[8]
He serves on the board of Facebook,[1]eBay, and Open Media
Network, a combined Kontiki (VeriSign) client and media player,
launched in 2005. Andreessen is now active in the blogging
community. On July 5, 2009, Andreessen announced (along with his
longtime business partner Ben Horowitz, the formation of their
venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, aimed purely at
investing in the best new entrepreneurs, products, and companies in
the technology industry.[9]He is
currently working on a new web browser, RockMelt.[10] On
September 1st, 2009, an investor group including Andreessen
Horowitz acquired a majority stake in Skype.[11]

Personal
life

Andreessen married Laura Arrillaga in 2006.[12] She
is the founder of the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund,[13]
and the daughter of Silicon Valley real estate billionaire John
Arrillaga.